Most of our homes are still operated by dumb technology with clumsy on/off switches. There are really only a few mainstream success stories of the so-called “Internet of things,” the idea that plugging our offline worlds into the Internet will make our lives better.

Governor Chris Christie apologized to New Jersey last week after it was revealed that aides ordered busy commuter highway lanes shut for four days in September to punish a local mayor. The ensuing gridlock paralyzed the town of Fort Lee and, in at least four cases, prevented emergency units from getting to people in need.

The incident has caused moral outrage — for "pettiness and vindictiveness in doses usually relegated to the Facebook pages of Mean Girls," according to Bloomberg View's Francis Wilkinson — and could short circuit Christie's presidential ambitions.

Ask a bunch of New Yorkers where they spend their money: apartments, cars, vacation lodgings, maybe designer handbags. In the new American “sharing economy,” these can all be enjoyed at a fraction of their normal cost. Just not if you’re a New Yorker.

Bloomberg News’s Aki Ito and Jeff Kearns recently wrote about the increasing number of websites where people rent out their stuff. Going away for the weekend? Why not rent out your apartment? Not using your car much? Let someone else. Services like Airbnb, RelayRides and DogVacay are on track to account for “at least a single-digit percentage” of GDP in five years, said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at the Stern School of Business. In America’s $16 trillion economy, that’s enough to make the $2 billion currently invested in such startups seem puny.

Bloomberg BNA -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is setting aside time at his party's weekly caucus lunch in the Capitol to focus solely on climate change, a senior Senate aide said Jan. 9, in hopes of one day reviving a bill to cut carbon dioxide emissions and better defend President Barack Obama's climate efforts from Republican attacks.

Reid reserves “a permanent spot” for the climate issue each week when Senate Democrats sit down for their hour-plus policy lunches, the aide told Bloomberg BNA.

The largest non-volcanic landslide in the modern history of North America occurred on April 10, 2013, when two avalanches spilled rock into a famous Utah copper mine. The slide freed enough debris and dust to bury New York City's Central Park 66 feet deep, according to a new University of Utah study that provides the first detailed look at the disaster.

"Polar vortex" has taken an uncontested lead in the competition for buzzword of 2014. It's brought Arctic chill to the continental United States, disrupted industries and cities, and most, curiously, turned Donald Trump into a climate realist. Sort of.

Here's a thought. What if Trump is right? An alternative, charitable reading of the tweet reveals Trump to be an impassioned climate change policy advocate with up-to-date knowledge of peer-reviewed science as it relates to our current cryogenic state.

Every once in a while, there’s a big idea that forever changes the way we live and the tools we use. Think electric light bulbs, washing machines and, maybe, Amazon’s dream of drone deliveries. Ford’s new concept car with rooftop solar panels looks like it could be next on the list. Don’t bet on it.

Ford is showing off its new C-Max Solar Energi at next week’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. The wagon’s solar cells are, on their own, insufficient to power electric driving, so the car comes with a special parking canopy that concentrates the sunlight like a magnifying glass. Throughout the day, the semi-autonomous car moves itself back and forth a few feet to get the most sunshine. It’s a plugin that doesn’t need to plug in.

Day breaks above a rolling, moss-covered forest. Adorable, red-capped mushrooms and furry critters stretch out in the young day's sun, as round notes from a cello -- then a flutter of woodwinds -- rise to a flute-driven crescendo.

A sentient tree lowers a branch down to this computer-animated paradise to cradle and raise aloft… a FedEx delivery truck.

About The Grid

Nations and companies face rising competition for strategic resources — energy, food, water, materials — and the technologies that make best use of them. That's sustainability. It's about the 21st-century race for wealth, health and long-term security, across the global grid.

Analyses or commentary in this blog are the views of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloomberg News.